What do you think when, at the end of the story, you can hear something like a device being switched off? It’s obvious, the mother has turned off the first Little Brother because she isn’t able to control his jealous behaviour when a second Little Brother has come home.
This story, in a very subtle way, even as a thriller-style movie, opens the door to many questions. For instance, don’t you ask yourselves why the woman has a son which is a robot? Apart from the extraordinary fact that technology could reach that incredibly real level, that isn’t the most important conclusion, because this is predictable. What are surely very important are the challenges and chances that humanity will have to take on in the future.
The question would be something like that:
- What kind of use will humans give this technology? Will it be a good or bad use?
I hope it will be as good as possible. But at that moment, I wonder:
- Will robots become more important than the million homeless children all over the world? Maybe it would be better if politicians and governments took more interest in controlling the black market surrounding helpless children in the underdeveloped nations, and to make adoption easier for people in the developed countries.
If we agree that population figures are increasing well above the planet’s resources and that by the 2050s this population growth will be unsustainable, we must conclude that one of the best solutions available would be to turn back to education in values and ethics. It would be essential to teach people how to manage their fellings and emotions.
Nowadays, it is a well-known fact that values are so deteriorated that it is necessary to recover notions such as altruism, civility, tolerance, nobility, integrity, sincerity...
Of course, the best moment in a person’s life is childhood, when we are in primary school, or even at the nursery.
Having said that, I can talk about the main idea. Robots might be a good tool for the emotional education in our societies. I think a great percentange of young couples are not mature enough to manage their children’s education. By using technology, in the future, people could have an excelent way to learn how to bring up children appropriately and be trained until they are qualified to have their own offspring.
Finally, I would conclude with some reflections about the current education systems and teaching methods. Most of the scientific community members agree with the idea that current education methods are absolutely old-fashioned. Technologic advances will make it possible to put robots or even people in other planets, but humans are still not able to manage their emotions. It is obvious that technology it is so much more developed than our own understanding of ourselves.
But this is nothing new, it isn’t a mystery. Far Easterners have had this knowledge for five thousand years. The real challenge for the 21st century is to understand how humans will reach a good communion between Western and Eastern cultures to take out the best of both worlds and give our children the best integral upbringing, based on global values so as to have the best citizens for our societies in our small and globalized planet.
All of this, which has been badly explained by me, has been supported by many theories. These are arguably their most important Spanish advocates, if someone is interested in going deeper into this subject:
* - Eduardo Punset, on several studies he has made over thirty years, especially in his latest trilogy: · Viaje a la Felicidad · Viaje al amor · Viaje al poder de la mente - Both in Punset’s blog and his TV Program called Redes, you can find his most famous programs and articles. I would strongly recommend seeing the 49th & 50th emission of Redes based in the Mind in Life Institute conference which was celebrated in autumn 20009 in Washington DC, whose interlocutors were the most important Western scientists and educators on one hand, and the Dalai Lama and other famous Budist scientists like Matthieu Ricard. As well it will be a good exercise too if practice listening to the Dalai’s speech.
* - Ramiro Calle has been talking about this subject discussing similar theories for many years too. He has a great bibliography about it. His latest books on this topic are: · La sabiduria de los Lamas Tibetanos (2004). · Técnicas orientales para la liberación (2007) · Ingenieria emocional (2008)
I’ve found the Little Brother© story very interesting, that is why I would like to share my opinion with all of you to know what kind of emotions it has inspired in you.
Of course, it is a work of fiction, but if we look at it from another point of view... maybe in the future this fiction could become a reality.
What do you think when, at the end of the story, you can hear something like a device being switched off? It’s obvious, the mother has turned off the first Little Brother because she isn’t able to control his jealous behaviour when a second Little Brother has come home.
This story, in a very subtle way, even as a thriller-style movie, opens the door to many questions. For instance, don’t you ask yourselves why the woman has a son which is a robot? Apart from the extraordinary fact that technology could reach that incredibly real level, that isn’t the most important conclusion, because this is predictable. What are surely very important are the challenges and chances that humanity will have to take on in the future.
The question would be something like that:
- What kind of use will humans give this technology? Will it be a good or bad use?
I hope it will be as good as possible. But at that moment, I wonder:
- Will robots become more important than the million homeless children all over the world? Maybe it would be better if politicians and governments took more interest in controlling the black market surrounding helpless children in the underdeveloped nations, and to make adoption easier for people in the developed countries.
If we agree that population figures are increasing well above the planet’s resources and that by the 2050s this population growth will be unsustainable, we must conclude that one of the best solutions available would be to turn back to education in values and ethics. It would be essential to teach people how to manage their fellings and emotions.
Nowadays, it is a well-known fact that values are so deteriorated that it is necessary to recover notions such as altruism, civility, tolerance, nobility, integrity, sincerity...
Of course, the best moment in a person’s life is childhood, when we are in primary school, or even at the nursery.
Having said that, I can talk about the main idea. Robots might be a good tool for the emotional education in our societies. I think a great percentange of young couples are not mature enough to manage their children’s education. By using technology, in the future, people could have an excelent way to learn how to bring up children appropriately and be trained until they are qualified to have their own offspring.
Finally, I would conclude with some reflections about the current education systems and teaching methods. Most of the scientific community members agree with the idea that current education methods are absolutely old-fashioned. Technologic advances will make it possible to put robots or even people in other planets, but humans are still not able to manage their emotions. It is obvious that technology it is so much more developed than our own understanding of ourselves.
But this is nothing new, it isn’t a mystery. Far Easterners have had this knowledge for five thousand years. The real challenge for the 21st century is to understand how humans will reach a good communion between Western and Eastern cultures to take out the best of both worlds and give our children the best integral upbringing, based on global values so as to have the best citizens for our societies in our small and globalized planet.
All of this, which has been badly explained by me, has been supported by many theories. These are arguably their most important Spanish advocates, if someone is interested in going deeper into this subject:
* - Eduardo Punset, on several studies he has made over thirty years, especially in his latest trilogy:
· Viaje a la Felicidad
· Viaje al amor
· Viaje al poder de la mente
- Both in Punset’s blog and his TV Program called Redes, you can find his most famous programs and articles. I would strongly recommend seeing the 49th & 50th emission of Redes based in the Mind in Life Institute conference which was celebrated in autumn 20009 in Washington DC, whose interlocutors were the most important Western scientists and educators on one hand, and the Dalai Lama and other famous Budist scientists like Matthieu Ricard.
As well it will be a good exercise too if practice listening to the Dalai’s speech.
* - Ramiro Calle has been talking about this subject discussing similar theories for many years too. He has a great bibliography about it. His latest books on this topic are:
· La sabiduria de los Lamas Tibetanos (2004).
· Técnicas orientales para la liberación (2007)
· Ingenieria emocional (2008)
*The links that you can visit are:
http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/programa-redes
http://www.lecturalia.com/autor/1337/ramiro-calle